On the afternoon of 29 June 2002, a major
event in the musical history of Gurdjieff's Work will take place.
In Amsterdam's venerable concert-hall, the 'Concertgebouw',
two compositions for orchestra, composed by Gurdjieff and De
Hartmann, will be performed in front of an audience.
When the members of the Metropole Orchestra take up their instruments
and start playing at the sign of their conductor, one of these
compositions will resound for the first time ever. The other
one has been played only once until now in its full orchestral
configuration: in 1923 under Gurdjieff's direct supervision.
It will be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this musical
event: for the history of Gurdjieff's and De Hartmann's music;
for the insights this performance may bring for those interested
in Gurdjieff's teaching and perhaps even for the entire history
of music in general as well.
The first of the abovementioned compositions, the World Premiere,
will be the 'Oriental Suite'. An orchestration by Thomas de
Hartmann, completed in 1956 after Gurdjieff's death, but based
on five earlier compositions they made together. To understand
why music composed by De Hartmann after Gurdjieff's death, like
this 'Oriental Suite' or the music composed for the series of
Movements called the '39', is of equal validity as music composed
as a result of their direct co-operation, one should pay attention
to the explanation as given by Thomas Daly, curator of the 'De
Hartmann Estate'. Mr. Daly wrote (1) that even when physically
separated from his Teacher, De Hartmann still felt connected
to him through a magnetic bond and referred to what De Hartmann
himself said in his autobiography about this source of availability
of Gurdjieff's immediate presence (2).
The second piece will be a choice from the orchestrations, made
after the original piano versions of the pieces, prepared by
De Hartmann for the Movements demonstrations in 1923. These
orchestrations, for 36 musicians, were made by De Hartmann in
the summer of 1923. It has been explained to me (3) that during
the rehearsals three days before the performance, Gurdjieff
sat down next to each individual musician to verify correctness
and meaning of the scores for his or her instrument. He must
have been satisfied, because he implemented only one or two
notable changes (4).
Seeing the large old books, containing De Hartmann's own beautiful
and meticulously hand-written scores for each instrument, one
senses and realises how important this project must have been
for him. How could it be otherwise, knowing his dedication to
Gurdjieff as well as his musical training as a director in Munich,
under Felix Mottl.
Each composer, including Gurdjieff and De Hartmann, composes
to be heard! The composer's initial impulse finds its completion
in the listener. Now, finally, this will be possible for this
music too.
Rather than lose time and energy on the painful question of
why this process took so long in this particular case, let us
be glad and ........ grateful for the efforts made by Dushka
Howarth and Gert-Jan Blom - artistic producer of the Metropole
Orchestra - and especially to Thomas Daly for his efforts. Without
these people, nothing would have happened at all, not now and
perhaps not in the future either.
As a personal last note, I wish to express my deep gratitude
to the anonymous person who, two years ago, did send Gert-Jan
Blom and myself the complete orchestral score for the 'Oriental
Suite', an action that triggered the whole train of events resulting
in the coming performance of 29 June 2002. Thanks, my dear Mr.
or Mrs X!
Wim van Dullemen
NOTES
(1) Letter to Gert-Jan Blom and Wim van Dullemen, dd. November
8, 2001
(2) See De Hartmann's 'Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff', pp 28-29
(first edition), or p 41 in the new edition '83.
(3) Conversation with Dushka Howarth, quoting her mother who
participated in this first performance of Gurdjieff's Movements
(4) f.i. the murmurs - expressed in the score for muted trumpets
- of praying monks in the 'Great Prayer'
Read the programme of this concert afternoon...
Tickets available at: www.concertgebouw.nl
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